User blog:Takashichea/Beginner's Guide To Rave Master
This guide is for people who haven't tried Rave Master. If you are a fan of the series, please enjoy this guide as well. It will give you another side of Rave Master to think about. Hiro Mashima is the mangaka behind Rave Master, his first series. He is also known for his other works such as Monster Soul, Fairy Tail, and Monster Hunter Orage. His Rave Master and Fairy Tail are his longest manga series with an anime adaptation. Fairy Tail is Hiro Mashima's current ongoing manga and anime series with over 110 episodes aired and 30 volumes published. Compared to Rave Master, the series has ended with 35 volumes, and for the anime, it ended abruptly at 51 episodes. Despite Rave Master's early end, it is the catalyst and source of inspiration for Hiro Mashima's future works. You'll see the similarities between his works especially the characters. Other outside influences are Toriyama Akira's Dragon Ball work and Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada's Ultimate Muscle work. Rave Master was first published by Kodansha in the Shonen Magazine during 1999 to 2005. The first volume was published in November 1999, and the final volume was published in September 2005. For the anime adaptation, Rave Master is produced by Studio Deen and directed by Takashi Watanabe and aired on TBS in October 2001. The series ended in September 2002. In North America, Cartoonnetwork aired Rave Master on its Toonami block in June 2004. After the series was cancelled, it aired on Syfy in 2009. The Story It's about a teenage boy named Haru Glory who is on a quest to find the Rave with the assistance of Plue in order to defeat Demon Card. In his adventures, he encounters Elie who lost her memories, and he promises to help her as they travel the world and save the innocent from Demon Card. Terminology *Rave (Holy Bring) - These magical objects are the only things that can destroy Dark Bring. There are only five in existence that were created by Resha Valentine, and they transform Haru's sword into various different blades. *Dark Bring or Shadow Stone (Dub) - They are the antithesis to Rave stones, and they come in many shapes and sizes. They come from Mother Sinclair and have the power to corrupt the user. *Ten Powers (Ten Commandments Sword or Decaforce (Dub)) - This is Haru's main weapon that houses the Rave stones. In the dub version, they changed it to Decaforce to avoid a religious reference because the ten commandments are related to the Bible. Demon Card or Shadow Guard (Dub) - An organization that uses Dark Bring to control the world. Rave Master Items The Characters These are the main characters of Rave Master. Haru Glory - A teenage boy who becomes the 2nd generation Rave Master after meeting Shiba, and before leaving Garage Island, he promises his sister (Cattleya Glory) that he will come back home after defeating Demon Card and helping Plue to get all the Five Rave stones. Haru is a bit of a naive boy since he never been outside of his small island of a home. Voices: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese) and Yuri Lowenthal (English) Elie - A mysterious girl who has amnesia and a past relating to the Rave stones. Don't be fooled by her looks, she packs a mean punch with her powerful Tonfan guns and has an unnaturally good luck on her side when it comes to gambling. Elie happens to like gambling a lot as well. Voices: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese) and Michelle Ruff (English) Hamrio Musica - A Silver Claimer and a thief whose family is massacred by a psychopath seeks the Silver Ray to honor his teacher's will. He's the leader of the Silver Rhythm Gang. Voices: Showtaro Morikubo (Japanese) and Doug Erholtz (English) Plue - A carrot nosed dog who helps Haru track down the Rave Stones. He loves lollipops and hates pudding. Go ask Griffon Kato for the whole story. Plue is one of the most adorable things in this franchise and in Fairy Tail. Voices: Yukiji Kaoru (Japanese) and Mona Marshall (English) Griffon Kato is a blue gourd-like, lecherous animal that looks like Squidward and has yellow cilia as feet. He's the map and transportation person. Voices: Katsuya Shiga (Japanese) and Tom Kenny (English) For Fairy Tail and Monster Soul fans, you see the familiar archetypes from these characters that have strong similarities to your favorite characters. Let's discuss that in the comments below. Why Watch? Audience I recommend this to both males and females age 10 and up. As the series progresses into tragic and tear jerking moments, the audience has to have thicker skin for it. Rave Master is an enjoyable series for many of us when we're young. It is cool to see a guy swinging a giant sword and going "Explosion!" and when the anime gets serious with the dramatic and mournful scenes, it made us cry. I watched this series twice, and it was for a team wiki project. Rave Master still appealed to me now because of its funny yet serious moments. Despite the Shonen cliches of friendship and dreams, Rave Master does it in a low key way. It's about friends fighting to protect each other to the very end with their last breaths. The manga is somewhat graphic with the dismemberment and blood than the anime version which is more toned down more. Though, the American version is more censored than its Japanese counterpart. The music of Rave Master is unforgettable and when Haru takes action to do something crazy, the music compliments the action. Manga or Anime For the people who are new, I definitely recommend checking the anime first then the manga. Despite the censorship, the anime is quite faithful to its manga story and the characters in the anime look maturer than its manga counterparts. When you get to episode 51 where the anime has abruptly ended, you can shift to the manga. Since Rave Master is Hiro Mashima's first work, his art style is a bit rough in the beginning volumes. As the manga progressed, the characters' design improve and mature. Censorship and Name Changes Like all good anime, they are subjected to censorship. Check out the wiki page or feel free to ask me what censorship they did. They censor the bath scenes that shows some bits of Elie's breasts, altered Griffon's flashback, changed the gun noises to laser noises, and censor Julius's beatings of Elie when she's down. Sorry for going off on a tangent, I'm becoming more like my mentor. As for name changes, the dub version changes the name such as Dark Bring, Demon Card, Ten Commandments and more. Seiyuu For dub and sub, I don't have a strong preference. I do watch the Japanese version because it's less censored than the English version. Sadly, I don't know my seiyuus really well. I love both the English and Japanese voices for Haru, Elie, Musica, and Plue. I am amazed that Yuri Lowenthal is the voice actor for Sasuke Uchiha and that Michelle Ruff is the voice actress for Rukia Kuchiki. Interesting Fact: For Fairy Tail fans, I looked up Tomokazu Seki and Ayako Kawasumi, and they had did some Fairy Tail characters, Lucky and Marl. Like their roles: Haru and Elie, these characters are also a couple. Now, that's deep romance for those pairs. Conclusion Rave Master is one of those Shonen series that go beyond with action, romance, and drama with powerful themes of love, friendship, and determination to make things right. For those who think most Shonen animes have a male protagonist who's not in a real relationship, Rave Master will change your mind. The love between the main characters go a long way and withstand time. Thanks Thank you, everyone for reading this beginner guide. I thank Omega for helping me get adjusted to the whole coding thing since I'm new to Wikia communities. He did an excellent job with his teammates: Aldarinor and Haru Mclean Namikaze on the Rave Master wiki pages and establishing goals to make this community better. I thank my teammate, Fire_Star, for working on Rave Master Anime Vice project with me during summer of 2011 and SuperTiencha for his determination to bring both Anime Vice and Rave Master Wikia together. Takashichea Rave Master Wikia Category:Blog posts